FA Cup draw: Shrews leave it late to seal fourth-round date with Liverpool
Aaron Pierre scored an 89th-minute winner to give League One Shrewsbury a 1-0 victory over the Championship side Bristol City in their FA Cup thirdround replay and set up a meeting at home to the Premier League leaders, Liverpool. Sam Ricketts, the Shrews’ manager, is going in with a positive mindset, and said: “They have weakness like any team. We will have to ride our luck and, when we get chances, have to try and take them.”
Watford will play three games in six days following the postponement of their FA Cup third-round replay at Tranmere due to heavy rainfall.
The match has been rescheduled for Thursday 23 January. Before then they play two Premier League games: on Saturday against Tottenham and then Tuesday’s pivotal game against Aston Villa.
Tranmere had no option but to postpone the replay after heavy rain over the last three days had left the Prenton Park pitch unplayable.
A club statement read: “Although the surface of the pitch is removed and re-sowed every year, the underlying sub-structure is around 30 years old. Despite its age, until this season the pitch has coped admirably, even with Liverpool U23s (and latterly LFCW in place of the U23s) playing on the pitch, because since 2015 we have invested in putting fibre into it every season to make the surface more durable, and have used pitch lights to enable the grass to grow in areas where the natural sunlight is poor [mostly in front of the Kop Stand].
“In order to give us the best chance of getting the Watford game on, we also hired in an additional specialist pitch covering which allows air to circulate underneath it to dry the pitch. Unfortunately, even this was not enough in the face of Storm Brendan.
Nor is it an issue of money. We have spent many tens of thousands of pounds on pitch covers, a new vertidrainer to allow the more regular verti-draining of the pitch and new growlights. We have also had the grounds staff working sometimes through the night as needed to allow games to go ahead. We are of course very disappointed that our pitch is not what it should be this season, but we hope this will enable people to better understand what the problem is and how it will be dealt with.”
Coventry ran out comfortable 3-0 winners as they knocked out Bristol Rovers and now have a home tie at St Andrew’s with their landlords, Birmingham City.
The Championship side Reading won 2-0 at League One Blackpool, with